Training & Behavior

The kitten climbed the curtain before she climbed on me. She was six weeks old and the living room had vertical blinds she treated like a tree, shimmying up the slats and dangling there like a tiny furry bat while I stood beneath her feeling useless. She came down when she got bored, not when I called.

I bought a scratching post the next day, a tall one with a perch on top, and put it right under the window where the blinds lived. The idea was to give her a legal tree. She ignored it for a week and went back to the blinds, because the blinds were closer to the sun and the sun was the real prize.

So I moved the post into the sun. I put a blanket on the perch that smelled of her, and I sprinkled a little catnip at the base the first morning. She climbed it by accident, found the warm spot, and claimed it. The blinds lost their appeal the moment the post offered the same view with a softer landing.

Cats are not stubborn. They are practical. The curtain was high, sunny, and climbable, so it won. The post had to beat those three things or it would lose too. Once it did, she never went back to the blinds. She is on the perch now as I write this, watching the street like a tiny sentinel with better taste than I gave her credit for.

The mistake people make is buying the post and expecting the cat to read the manual. The post has to earn its place. Sun, smell, height, softness, those are the things a cat actually wants. Get two of three and you are close. Get all four and the furniture is safe.

I still have the blinds, a little worse for wear, with one slat she claimed as a trophy. I keep it as proof that the post won fair and square. She chose the better tree. I just had to build it where she was already looking.

If your kitten has a favourite forbidden thing, don't scold the climb. Build the better one next to it, in the sun, and let her discover the upgrade on her own terms. She will. Cats always pick the warmer seat.

The blinds still bear the mark, a slat slightly bent where she used to hook her claws. I left it. It is a small monument to a kitten learning the world had rules she could negotiate rather than fight.

She brings me toys to the perch now, drops them at my feet when I walk past, as if the post is hers and she is hosting. The sun spot is her court. I am allowed in by invitation only, which she grants roughly when she is bored.

People buy the wrong post, the short carpet one in the corner nobody sits near, and wonder why the cat ignores it. The cat is not ignoring it. The cat is choosing the window. Put the post where the cat already wants to be and the battle is over before it starts.

She is two now and the perch is worn where she sits, a pale patch in the fabric from a thousand sun naps. I look at it and feel a small pride, that I built the right tree in the right sun and she chose it over the blinds. Cat ownership is mostly losing arguments, so winning this one quietly meant something.

The blinds got replaced last spring, the bent slat gone with the old set. I almost kept it, then realised the lesson lives in the cat, not the slat. She is the monument. The window is hers, the post is hers, the sun is hers by negotiation, and I am just the one who put the better option where she was already looking. That is most of cat training, if I am honest.

I have since bought a second post, a smaller one for the bedroom, because she decided the bed was also her territory and the blinds there were tempting. Same rule applied, sun, smell, height, and she claimed it within a day. The first post taught me the method, the second proved it was not luck. Cats are not random about where they climb. Give them the better spot and they will choose it every time, and your blinds will live to see another winter.

A friend with a kitten asked what to buy and I said two things, a tall post and patience, and she rolled her eyes and came back a month later with shredded blinds and a defeated look. We put the post in the sun, added the blanket, sprinkled the nip, and within three days the blinds were forgotten. She texted me a photo of the kitten on the perch, victorious, and wrote that she should have listened. I told her the cat listened, which is the part that matters, and the only part that ever does.